Avengers: The Children's Crusade

Avengers: The Children's Crusade

Promotional artwork for Avengers: The Children's Crusade.

The Young Avengers appear in the 2010–2012 miniseries, Avengers: The Children's Crusade, written by Allan Heinberg and illustrated by Jim Cheung. In the series, Magneto learned that the Young Avengers were going to search for the still missing Scarlet Witch, and that Wiccan and Speed may be the reincarnations of Wanda's children. Magneto meets them, stating that he wants Wiccan and Speed to finally know him as their grandfather, and helps them find Wanda.

The Avengers attempt to stop Magneto and fight him unsuccessfully, before Wiccan teleports Magneto and the Young Avengers to Wundagore Mountain. There they encounter Quicksilver, who attempts to kill his father. However, they discover that this Scarlet Witch is actually a Doombot in disguise, prompting the Young Avengers and Magneto to journey to Latveria, with the Avengers, Quicksilver and Wonder Man following behind them.

Wiccan eventually finds the real Wanda, apparently devoid of her powers, amnesiac and engaged to be married to Doctor Doom. Wolverine tries to kill Wanda, but is prevented from doing so by the reappearance of Iron Lad. Doom also states that Wanda is depowered. Iron Lad and the Young Avengers escape with Wanda into the timestream and land in the past when the resurrected Jack of Hearts destroys the Avengers Mansion. The team escapes the explosion and involuntarily returns to the present due to Wanda, who has remembered everything. As an unexpected side effect, the life of Scott Lang is also saved.

When the group returns to the present, Scarlet Witch is shown in a depression where she thinks that she killed her father, her brother, and the Avengers. She vows to kill herself with Kree ships and Ultron clones which Hawkeye and the Young Avengers destroy. During that time, Beast and Jessica Jones arrive, where Beast learns that the Scarlet Witch that he encountered was actually a Doombot. Wiccan tells her that her father, her brother, and "her sons" are still alive. Billy finally gets the happy Mother-and-Child Reunion that he had been dreaming of. Beast asks Wanda if she can reverse the "No more mutants" spell. She is unsure a reverse spell would work. They meet up with X-Factor Investigations, which has many clients who are depowered mutants. Rictor volunteers and has his powers restored. The X-Men show up and Wanda tells X-Factor Investigations that if the X-Men want more mutants then that's exactly what she will give them.

However, a battle ensues between the X-Men and the Avengers over what to do with Wanda, forcing her and the Young Avengers to flee back to Doctor Doom. It is revealed that Wanda's enhanced powers were a result of her and Doom's combined attempt to channel the Life Force in order to resurrect her children, but it proved to be too much for Wanda to contain and overtook her. With Wiccan and Doom's help, they seek to use the entity possessing Wanda to restore mutantkind's powers but they are stopped by Patriot (who is concerned at the fall-out that would ensue if the powerless mutants are suddenly repowered), only to find out that the entity was transferred to Doom's body, giving him Wanda's god-like powers. His scars finally healed, he calls himself "Victor", discards his now useless mask, and promises to take care of everything. Doom becomes omnipotent with powers surpassing those of beings as Beyonder or the Cosmic Cube; he offers to use these powers to fix the Avengers' and X-Men's problems and bring their deceased friends back to life, but both teams refuse the offer. The Young Avengers confront him, aided by the Avengers, the X-Men and X-Factor; Wanda and Wiccan manage to remove Doom's newfound powers, and he reveals that he was responsible for the Scarlet Witch's doings during the "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M" events. During the confrontation Stature attacks Doom, who responde by blasting her with a wave of energy. After Wanda and Wiccan successfully remove the powers from Doom he escapes. The last panel of issue 8 ends with the heroes surrounding Stature's stricken form.

Following the battle with Doom, Stature is revealed to have died from her injuries. Iron Lad offers to save Stature by taking her into the timestream. Vision objects to this, making Iron Lad enraged with him. Iron Lad attacks him, resulting in Vision's destruction. Iron Lad then prepared to jump into the timestream to go back and save Stature, with Wiccan warning him that this is the moment he becomes Kang the Conqueror, but Iron Lad is not deterred. With the battles over, all that was left was to determine the fate of the Scarlet Witch. Cyclops agrees to leave the Scarlet Witch alone, but states that he will kill Wanda if she turns against the heroes again. Rejecting the offer to rejoin the Avengers or her family, Wanda departs stating that after years of defining herself as Magneto's daughter, Pietro's sister, or the Vision's wife, she wants to find out who she is on her own before she decides what to do with her life. Later the Young Avengers decide to disband, much to the disapproval of Speed. Months pass by with the events of Spider-Island, Schism, and the Human Torch's revival having occurred and the Young Avengers taking no action. All this time Wiccan was in a depressive state. Hulkling tries to get him to talk to someone, but Wiccan refuses. Wiccan then believes Hulkling is breaking up with him, leading Hulkling to make an impromptu "proposal". They kiss, but are interrupted by Ms. Marvel and told to get into uniform and go to the mansion. The issue ends with the Young Avengers officially being recognized as full-fledged Avengers.